How to make köfte

Berkay is the cook of the house, and today he made Turkish meatballs/ köfte from scratch to put on the BBQ. I thought I’d share his ‘recipe’ although he just judges everything by eye, so I don’t have exact amounts of specific ingredients.

Ingredients

Beef Mince (we used 400g and made 8 good sized meatballs)

2 Garlic cloves

One medium onion

Fresh breadcrumbs

1 egg

Black pepper

Salt

Dried chili flakes

Cumin powder

Olive oil

First, grate the onion and garlic into a bowl.

Next, make some breadcrumbs from crustless stale/dry bread. Berkay left half a loaf out this morning so it was hard by the time we needed it, he then put it into the oven for 5 or so minutes to make it even more crusty, but that’s not always necessary. He literally picked crumbs off the bread (but you could whizz the bread in a blender if you have one) and added them to the bowl with the onion and garlic, there is no exact amount here but less is best, you can always add more later if the mixture is too wet.

Then he added one whisked egg into the bowl, along with the minced meat. He also added the salt, black pepper, cumin and chili flakes at this point. Again, there are no exact measurements for this, to be safe you could add 1/2 teaspoon of each, but it’s entirely up to you and it depends on how spicy you like them. Berkay is a big fan of spicy foods so he added a good amount of chili flakes and salt. He added 2 teaspoons of olive oil too.

Now for the fun part, stick your hands in and give everything a good mix. You need to knead it all together for at least 5 minutes until everything is sticking together nicely, if the mixture is too wet you can add more breadcrumbs.

Take chunks of the mixture and roll into balls, then pat them down with your hands until they are around 1/2 inch thick. We made 8, but you could make more if you wanted them to be smaller. Put them in the fridge for 30-60 minutes to let them set a little.

Berkay cooked ours on the BBQ grill for around 15 minutes, make sure to cut them in half to check they are cooked through. You could also grill or fry them but you really just can’t beat barbequed köfte! Yummy.

Here’s an amusing photo of Berkay lighting the BBQ.. yes, that is my hairdryer.